'Dr Death' cleared after 2 year trial

The head of South Africa's chemical and biological weapons programme has been acquitted on 46 counts of murder, fraud and drug dealing.

The case revealed the extent of the apartheid regime's efforts to dispose of its enemies and cling to power.

Pretoria High Court Judge Willie Hartzenberg, a white man originally appointed by the apartheid regime, said the prosecution had failed during the 21/2-year trial to prove Dr Wouter Basson guilty of any crimes.

As the verdict was read out, Dr Basson, a cardiologist dubbed "Dr Death," smiled. He later declined to comment, but his lawyer, Jaap Cilliers, said: "We're very happy with the judgment."

Scientists and former government agents described Dr Basson as a calculating man sitting atop a secret agency - with front companies across the world - focused on finding better ways to kill apartheid's opponents.

Prosecutors have accused Judge Hartzenberg of blatantly favouring Dr Basson. The government will appeal, said a spokesman for the National Director of Public Prosecutions. Witnesses at the trial said the government's-shadowy chemical warfare unit, Project Coast, looked into creating poisons and anti-fertility drugs that would only affect blacks and hoarded enough cholera and anthrax to start epidemics.

The unit laced sugar with salmonella, cigarettes with anthrax and chocolate and beer with poison in efforts to create more effective assassination tools, according to testimony.

The intended victims included Nelson Mandela and several African National Congress leaders, now highranking government officials.

Witnesses also said Dr Basson siphoned millions of dollars from Project Coast to finance a lavish, globe-trotting lifestyle.

Dr Basson denied the fraud charges, said he never provided poisons to kill opponents and insisted he had innocently been embroiled in a drug deal he knew nothing about. During his testimony, he described heading the secret programme as a romantic life of espionage that led him to meetings with agents across the globe.

He boasted he helped save Iran from hunger by teaching it how to combat potato blight and said he reined in a hepatitis-A epidemic racing through South Africa's military.

Dr Basson, who suffered a stroke in February, appeared healthy as he listened to the judge's decision, which took all day to read in Afrikaans.

He continued working as a cardiologist at a state hospital during the trial until he was asked to resign last May.

Allegations about Dr Basson's supposed programme emerged in 1997, when he was arrested for allegedly selling ecstasy to a police informant and investigators discovered documents about Project Coast.

Since the trial began in October 1999, the charges against him have slowly been whittled down.

Judge Hartzenberg immediately dropped six counts against Dr Basson because they took place abroad.

Among them were charges he conspired to kill two apartheid opponents in London with a poison-pellet firing umbrella and supplied muscle relaxants used to kill more than 200 Namibian prisoners.